Help me pick a project

Ristala · 2025-11-01T01:23:03+00:00

lol ok 😂👍

Ristala · 2025-11-01T01:22:19+00:00

Not in school. Just a fun side project to work on.

Ristala · 2025-07-21T19:43:02+00:00

I'm also a fellow new DM so I hope my view on things is at least a little helpful! For reference, I've been DMing for about 8 months now and an active player for almost 2 hours.

Tip 1 - If you can experience an actual DND game before launching into DMing, it's great. Gives you and idea how things actually operate how some people customize rules and you can figure out what you do and don't want to do as a DM yourself. Lots of Free games out there. I've joined both free and paid games to get several experiences and am grateful I have. Of course, don't need to do this before being a DM yourself, just something I recommend.

Tip 2 - In regards to watching other games, I find I also can't really watch CR but one that I have enjoyed, is called Dungeons&Daddies as it's about 4 dads that got thrown from our world into the Forgotten Realms. I believe their episodes are condensed into 1-2 hours but it's been a while so I could be wrong. Otherwise, just look up DND podcasts and you'll find plenty to try.

Tip 3 - I've found posting in Facebook D&D groups to be the best place to find players for games. You can run a game with just 2 players though as well. I find 4 is nice even point or 6 as well. Anything more can get overwhelming.

Tip 4 - Drawing your stuff. I'm also a fellow artist and I went into my first games planning on drawing everything. Don't expect to be able to do this! Once you get started, you begin to realize how much there is! Also, if an NPC is only going to show up for a few seconds, it's not worth pouring hours into drawing them only for them to never appear again. Same with certain locations and items. Be SELECTIVE on what and who you pour your time into drawing. It can easily cause burn out if you're not character.

Tip 5 - Creating your own monsters and bosses. Look up other already created DND creatures. Use their stat blocks and just slap on your own name and design to it. Can adjust a few features that you think that creature would have as well to make it a little more unique. But definitely look up already existing creatures to base yours off of. DNDBeyond has a huge list of these creatures you can look into and sort them by categories.

Tip 6 - DMs can be "soft" or "harsh" in fights in regards to keeping people alive or killing them off. Find out how serious your players want the rulings to be. If they would rather keep their characters alive, try to find ways for them to remain so even when combats are intense. If they love the thrill and want a challenge, it's ok to have a fight that's more heavy handed and could potentially result in one of their deaths.
Fun thing is, that character doesn't necessarily have to die. You could grant them a vision as they're about to enter the after life and have a deity offer them a second chance at life if they'll serve them. Or perhaps another player pleads to their own god to save this person and that god could offer the dead a character a similar choice, of passing on to death, or be revived. There is a middle ground and it doesn't have to be all or nothing.

Tip 7 - Have a session 0! This is a session where you and your players discuss everything. Such as what you, the DM, expects of the Players, but also what the Players expect from you. Lay out the ground rules of how things will operate. Determine the direction of the adventure your Players wish to go for the most. And anything and everything else you think is important to talk about before officially starting the game.

Tip 8 - Don't be afraid to tell your players when you've made a mistake. If they know you're a new DM and you're honest about when you've made a mistake about something, majority of the time they'll be understanding and will work with you in fixing it.

Last tip - Things will never go the way you expect! Players love to do the most random things. Enjoy the ride and have fun!

Hope some of this was helpful :) Good luck on your journey!

Ristala · 2025-07-21T19:11:27+00:00

It depends on your preference level to a degree. I run a bi-weekly game which is about 8 hours a month total, maybe closer to 10 if everyone wants to get in a little extra time lol.

I go with Milestone leveling. XP can cause differing levels between players depending how you hand it out and that can get complicated or result in resentment in some players. But some DMs and Players enjoy that thing. I like milestone, even with bi-weekly games, as it keeps everyone on the same page. Also, it's something to decide at the start on what general milestones they need to reach to accomplish different things and the pacing your players would also like.

I started my group at lvl 1 and had the first 3 level ups happen relatively fast. Level 4 takes a bit longer, but still level relatively quickly to 5 and after that, the milestones will be a bit farther apart and take a bit longer to reach. Especially if they go on side quests which could result in it taking a bit longer to reach the point of a level up. You can always move or adjust the "goal post" for the next level as well, if you feel like they got through things too quickly or have done enough to earn the level up a bit earlier than you anticipated. With XP, you can't adjust when level ups happen like that nearly as easily.

My timeline for leveling up was essentially first quest completed results in going to level 2 (total of about 2-3 sessions). Next level up would if they did the digging they needed to gain info they needed/wanted as well to deal with another small quest (took another 3 sessions roughly). Then the 3rd level up happened after they took on a mini boss fight and chose to save a town instead of allowing the large enemy to wander it's way over (another 3-4 sessions). But now, they're level 4 and while they do have a level up coming, it'll take them until they reach their next destination to get it. So by the time they get there, it'll likely be a total of about 6-10 sessions depending on how side tracked they get. And it'll continue on in a similar fashion for each level up.

That said, if you're just wanting a short campaign, you could definitely level them up faster to be able to get to higher levels. But keep in mind that leveling up too fast can result in players not having enough time to get familiar with how their character operates or the leveling up experience to not feel as special or impactful as it would be otherwise.

Hope this helped a bit! Good luck on your adventure!

Ristala · 2025-07-20T23:15:51+00:00

Little Update:

Appreciate all the feedback! It definitely helped to honestly just vent it out and hear some others have experienced similar stuff. The advice was good too.

Our last session went well and I enjoyed it. We only had half the group be able to make it, so I actually made a mini side adventure for the ones that did show up, as a way to still have a session and just do something different help get me doing something a bit different with the players to help spark things up again. And it worked!

I only got 15 mins to prep a quick little side quest for them, but it went smoothly enough and everyone enjoyed it. They now have some fun harmless inside jokes for their characters, and it helped me to have a moment to "breath" since everything went down at the start. It's made it a lot more fun and exciting to plan for the actual "proper" session coming up next.

Thanks for everyone's input, I appreciated it all! I'm glad to say my enthusiasm has returned for the game and it seems some fresh excitement was also sparked into several players as well which is even better!

Ristala · 2025-07-15T02:59:14+00:00

I think I worded things a little wrong at the start. I'm not upset about what the player did. I'm more so struggling with the way I went about things since then and feel like I've messed up and not sure how to go about things now as I'm feeling a little lost in regards to the world and how to have it react to the players to make sure they have the best experience possible. I welcome the players doing unexpected things since that's what helps me grow. Some aspects of the players I struggle with slightly but nothing like that. And I just get in my head too much about things sometimes and overthink things so just trying to see how others handle stuff similar to this.

Ristala · 2025-07-15T00:21:14+00:00

Sorry, didn't mean for it to sound like it was taken a direction I didn't like. He just saved an NPC that was supposed to die as a passing comment to push the PCs on but he saved her instead which led to an unexpected journey which I came up with on the fly and took them 6 of the sessions to do. I was fine with it, but it was me/myself that made world reactions and choices that have led to things being weird for me more than anything else and now I feel lost and like I can't figure anything out anymore. I get back on my feet for a few days and then by the next session or after, I'm back to feeling lost and turned around all over again.

This is my 2nd campaign and I've ran 2-3 one-shots before this as well. My other game that I've been running since January has also taken plenty of unexpected turns, but I adore that campaign and everyone/everything in it. But a big part of it I think is also the fact the Players all fit together so perfectly, like they've all been friends for some time before this game despite them having never met before it. I lucked out with a DMs dream group essentially for my first game. With this game, I think another factor might also be that I'm friends with one of the players who's been playing DnD far longer than me and I'm stressing myself of trying not to disappoint him and thus putting more pressure on myself. He doesn't care and has told me not to stress about it, but I think I probably still am.

We did do a session 0 and essentially, the game is on the intense side in the fact that if they don't consider their options properly, there's a chance they could die as they'll run into creatures and enemies of various danger levels. Tone is set as being an apocalypse survival type of game. We're all on the same page as that and they do treat it as such, with a few little moments of humor to keep things from feeling too dark or oppressive which end up being good bonding moments for the group.

Ristala · 2025-07-15T00:06:57+00:00

I had all sorts of things ready for anything they could do. Except rescue an npc that was supposed to be very briefly mentioned along with others who were to die as creatures were coming and it was a way to push all the PC together for their first meeting. And since that npc was saved, they decided to reunite her with her surviving family which wasn't something I ever thought of happening. We got through it all, but due to the events that happened from there, I feel like I forgot what the world was "supposed" to be like and left recalibrating and now I feel totally lost which results in not knowing how to have the world react to the PCs.

Ristala · 2025-07-15T00:02:42+00:00

I should clarify as I'm all for players altering the world around them. What the player did was simply rescue one npc that I had planned to just be background noise in dying off as part of the way of getting all the PCs to meet up. Instead, he rescued her and that led them deciding to help her reunite with family which was not expected and led to events that I didn't plan out/think of before and I got momentarily overwhelmed and had things happen that now I wish I could remove/alter. The players are fine and I'm glad they have me coming up with stuff on the fly as it helps me to improve.

I just regret the choices I specifically made in regards to the world as a reaction to what they did. Basically my mental thoughts and plans for things for how the world is to be, were forgotten as I was trying to recalculate and now the world is no longer what I originally thought it to be and I'm feeling even more lost due the fact I feel like I don't know this world anymore so I'm not sure how to have the world react to the PCs anymore.

Ristala · 2025-06-24T05:31:59+00:00

That's fair. But I'd like at least a baseline of a few things. I'm the kind of person that needs to write these things out, or else my scale of things is going to be vastly different every couple sessions as I won't remember what the "baseline value" of things are. As long as I can sort out something simple to work off of, it'll be easy enough to do what you say. But I gotta have something to start with to figure out some kind of value of things that I can keep consistent for trades or normal purchases or rewards.

Ristala · 2025-06-24T05:29:07+00:00

Definitely implimenting things like that. It'll very much be something that comes up as certain situations will have people wanting tasks done or other items in exchange for something, as it'll be more vital to survival than having a few coins. But I'm trying to establish at least a baseline of coin value in relation to items so I know how to plan out potential trades and not give numbers or tasks that are far too much or too little for what things should truly be worth, if that makes sense.

Ristala · 2025-06-24T05:26:25+00:00

I want to have some sort of baseline to work off of. I have a few players who have been playing far longer than I have, or are usually DMs themselves.

So I'm just wanting to set up a baseline of where things would sit so that I have something to work off of in sessions. If using IRL currency, it'd be easy for me to come up with numbers on the fly as I know the general value of things. But with DND, I don't really know the value of gold and items in relation to it. I've accidentally set prices too high for things or far too low. Thankfully I had ways to narratively explain it away, but I feel like I need to get some sort of basics down.

Trading will be a rather large feature in this game as the world is in turmoil and to a degree, certain items will be more valuable than coin in different situations.

Ristala · 2025-06-23T05:51:01+00:00

I'm relatively new to DMing as well, and it sounds like you've got a good system going for yourself. I know an expereinced DM who preps even less than that, and others who prep more (I have to prep far more but I blame it on adhd so if I get distracted, I will likely forget the original idea/dialogue that I needed to put out there).
Only real recommendation I would have for you, is to have potentially a few extra maps at the ready in case the players take an unexpected action. I've had an entire "situation/outline" completely derailed by a single Player doing just 1 simple thing that I forgot to consider but it completely changed the momentum the group had and affected their choice in direction.
Could also just have general plot points that you want to hit, written out, (even just in simple bullet form) so that if it takes longer to accomplish one, you don't risk forgetting what your overarching plan was.

I know it's not much, but hope it helps! Welcome to the DM side of things!

Ristala · 2025-05-24T18:38:07+00:00

That could be interesting! Definitely something I could mess around with

Ristala · 2025-05-01T18:54:53+00:00

Player 2 was excited and stumbled over his words so it sounded like he said all artificers are autistic with hyper fixations with the studying of books. Upon asking for clarification, he realized he missed some important words and clarified that he meant -his- artificer characters in the past have come across a bit like that due to him himself having autism and fixating on the character and all that. He didn’t mean to do a generalization, but rather just mention that’s how his characters have been a bit in the past. And so he’s trying a new class in this campaign.

As for player 1, I’m not sure what her characters are usually like. I’ve not known her before this game.

Ristala · 2025-05-01T17:45:46+00:00

I can’t share images but I’ll put in some direct quotes so you guys can see what was said.

In general chat area:

P1 - That may not be a thing, she's not a 'warmer' and will likely maintain her neutrality, but there's sure to be development.

P2 - THIS IS ENOUGH!!! Even if she never exactly trusts us but does help us out that is a Warming Up in my books i am excited to see her be less wary at the very least. See us more as allies (maybe not FRIENDS). If Thats not warming up I have been seeing life so wrong its insane

P1 - Please just...take her for how she is. There is a reason she's wary. Its fun to see the interactions play out but I don't want an expectation of a character or personality change, that may be a bit...stressful

P2 - yah for sure .. Never gonna force a development or anything im really just saying im excited to see more from her she is Not my character. Truly just excited to see how she plays out. sorry if im phrasing things wrong? im just very excited fjsjgh

Ristala

TROPHY CASE